Export to WAV Libsndfile error [SOLVED]

[Gale Andrews]

Did you package the project before closing it?

I'm sorry Gale; I don't have any idea what that means. I followed the steps I posted, exactly as I posted them - if you can explain what you mean by "packaging before closing", maybe I can answer?

It means, File > Close before you place the .aup and _data folder in a zip file. That way, Audacity will remove any .au files used purely to facilitate undo and redo while the project is open, so that they won't give an "orphaned files" warning when you re-open the project as they do for us.

If you can re-open that project you last sent us (audacity_broken_20069) without any errors about orphaned files then all is OK.

I can try messing around with it some more if you're interested in some help narrowing it down further

Please do, that's why I made all those suggestions.


Thanks


Gale

[jrssystemsnet]

I can confirm that I do not get any "orphaned file" (or any other type) errors upon re-opening the project. Still on the same Ubuntu Natty workstation w/Audacity from stock repos.

As soon as I get a chance I'll try playing with it on a stock Lucid workstation, and on a Windows 7 amd64 VM on the Lucid workstation. Might not be 'til next week, though, I'm pretty slammed right now.

[Gale Andrews]

I can confirm that I do not get any "orphaned file" (or any other type) errors upon re-opening the project. Still on the same Ubuntu Natty workstation w/Audacity from stock repos.

Thanks for confirming.

As soon as I get a chance I'll try playing with it on a stock Lucid workstation, and on a Windows 7 amd64 VM on the Lucid workstation. Might not be 'til next week, though, I'm pretty slammed right now.

To be honest, going back to an older Audacity/libsndfile combo isn't going to help narrow anything down.

What will help is to build libsndfile 1.0.23 and use sndfile-convert at the command line to convert the freesound WAV file; try 1.3.14 on the Natty machine; or at the least (again on the Natty machine) try importing the freesound file into a clean project, File > Open Metadata Editor, click in "Sound Forge 4.0" (the value for "Software"), press "Remove", click OK, then Export.

If I raise the energy to do the libsndfile test, I'll let you know.


Gale

[jrssystemsnet]

I know you said you didn't care, but - I opened the project in 1.3.12-beta (libsndfile 1.0.21) on my Lucid workstation. This time, I DID get the "orphaned blockfile[s]" message. After telling Audacity to delete the orphans, I exported to 16-bit PCM WAV with no errors.

So, this is a new bug in either Audacity itself or libsndfile since 1.3.12 and 1.0.21 respectively (the Natty machine is using libsndfile 1.0.23).

I don't need to build libsndfile 1.0.23 on the Natty workstation; it's already using 1.0.23. I'll shell into it and try running sndfile-convert now, and post back in a few minutes to let you know how that went.

[jrssystemsnet]

Looks like the bug is in libsndfile 1.0.23 - on the Natty machine, I tried converting the original freesound wav, and ended up with an apparently untrapped crash and a 44-byte output file.

Code: Select all

[email protected]:~$ sndfile-convert 20069__FreqMan__Bell_System_Ringer_Model_687A_8_70_.wav test.wav
[email protected]:~$ ls -lh *.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 2.1M 2011-08-28 19:42 20069__FreqMan__Bell_System_Ringer_Model_687A_8_70_.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me   44 2011-09-01 10:38 test.wav

[jrssystemsnet]

Bug is still present in libsndfile 1.0.24 (built from scratch from mega-nerd's source tarball):

Code: Select all

[email protected]:~$ sndfile-info | grep Version
Version : libsndfile-1.0.24
[email protected]:~$ sndfile-convert 20069__FreqMan__Bell_System_Ringer_Model_687A_8_70_.wav test.wav
[email protected]:~$ ls -lh *.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 2.1M 2011-08-28 19:42 20069__FreqMan__Bell_System_Ringer_Model_687A_8_70_.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me   44 2011-09-01 10:38 test.wav

The bug appears to be gone, however, with libsndfile 1.0.25 - the most current version at mega-nerd:

Code: Select all

[email protected]:~$ sndfile-info | grep Version
Version : libsndfile-1.0.25
[email protected]:~$ sndfile-convert 20069__FreqMan__Bell_System_Ringer_Model_687A_8_70_.wav test.wav
[email protected]:~$ ls -lh *.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 2.1M 2011-08-28 19:42 20069__FreqMan__Bell_System_Ringer_Model_687A_8_70_.wav
-rw-r--r-- 1 me me 2.1M 2011-09-01 10:38 test.wav

So apparently the answer is "don't build Audacity with libsndfile-1.0.23 or libsndfile-1.0.24", from what I can see...

[Gale Andrews]

Thanks for your tests. I had not previously bothered to test sndfile-convert on Windows given Audacity doesn't throw an error with your file on Windows. But testing it now on win 7 x64, I note that libsndile 1.0.24 32-bit and 1.0.25 32-bit convert the file OK. 1.0.24 64-bit fails and 1.0.25 64-bit works. I'm not sure what that means, other than I presume this specific issue will be prevented from occurring if Audacity is built against libsndfile 1.0.25. Are you on 64-bit architecture?

I figured out the problem with your file appears to be that the metadata is at the end of the data instead of before it. Moving the metadata before the data fixes it, but removing individual tags while leaving them at the end of the data does not. Metadata at the end of the data also appears to be the problem where WAV's get exported but corrupted as in bug 448. However in that case, at least on Windows, both 32-bit and 64-bit libsndfile convert the file that causes the issue, but Audacity corrupts it when exporting to WAV.

If you could do another couple of quick tests in your 1.3.13 Natty repo build, it would help us if others on Natty report problems exporting WAV:

* http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/freesound_tags_first.wav - this is your freesound file with all three metadata tags moved before the data (Audacity and libsndfile remove the "Engineer" tag). Libsndfile 1.0.24 32- and 64-bit and Audacity handle this file OK on windows. Does Audacity 1.3.13 export it correctly for you?
* http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/tauntpack_2578.wav - this is the file implicated in bug 448 - does 1.3.13 export it correctly without error message, and when you re-import it, is it muffled or distorted?


Thanks


Gale

[jrssystemsnet]

Yes, I am on amd64. I'll test those files tomorrow or this weekend for you.

[jrssystemsnet]

If you could do another couple of quick tests in your 1.3.13 Natty repo build, it would help us if others on Natty report problems exporting WAV:

* http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/freesound_tags_first.wav - this is your freesound file with all three metadata tags moved before the data (Audacity and libsndfile remove the "Engineer" tag). Libsndfile 1.0.24 32- and 64-bit and Audacity handle this file OK on windows. Does Audacity 1.3.13 export it correctly for you?
* http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/tauntpack_2578.wav - this is the file implicated in bug 448 - does 1.3.13 export it correctly without error message, and when you re-import it, is it muffled or distorted?

Both files exported correctly, and sounded fine when played.

[Gale Andrews]

If you could do another couple of quick tests in your 1.3.13 Natty repo build, it would help us if others on Natty report problems exporting WAV:

* http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/freesound_tags_first.wav - this is your freesound file with all three metadata tags moved before the data (Audacity and libsndfile remove the "Engineer" tag). Libsndfile 1.0.24 32- and 64-bit and Audacity handle this file OK on windows. Does Audacity 1.3.13 export it correctly for you?
* http://www.gaclrecords.org.uk/tauntpack_2578.wav - this is the file implicated in bug 448 - does 1.3.13 export it correctly without error message, and when you re-import it, is it muffled or distorted?

Both files exported correctly, and sounded fine when played.

Thanks for the tests.

The freesound test is useful because it shows the metadata at the end of the file is the problem (which may upset either libsndfile or Audacity).

The tauntpack test shows that as far as we know, providing libsndfile is not fazed by the metadata placement, Audacity can cope with it on Linux but not on Windows.



Gale